The President's got a rose garden
by Loz06
Summary: Margaret... Donna starts, go up to the Rose Garden and see if there's been 23 red roses picked and one peach. Margaret looks across at her like she's gone crazy, then realizing it's not such a stretch, goes.


Title: The President's got a rose garden  
  
Author: Loz  
  
E-Mail: loz06@yahoo.com  
  
Rating: PG 13  
  
Category: Leo/Margaret  
  
Series: Stand-alone  
  
Spoilers: None  
  
Archive (if applicable): SÂ¡!  
  
Feedback: The good, the bad and the very ugly it's all appreciated.  
  
Summary: "Margaret..." Donna starts, "go up to the Rose Garden and see if there's been 23 red roses picked and one peach." Margaret looks across at her like she's gone crazy, then realizing it's not such a stretch, goes.  
  
Author's Notes: I wrote this before I got the Inside the West Wing book where I learnt John Spencer is an avid gardener. He'd probably die if he read how I've portrayed Leo's encounter with the Rose Garden.  
  
Disclaimers: A rose by any other name still smells the same and The West Wing still isn't owned by me.  
  
Thanks: Goes out to Melissa who said she liked it and continually encouraged me to post it.  
  
~*~  
  
There are times in Leo McGarry's office when you know something of significant proportions is happening and there's a crucial decision to be made. He can be found pacing the carpet in front of his desk; jacket off and shirtsleeves rolled up. His tie, still around his neck tucked practically into his breast pocket and to relieve the stress he'll probably be unconsciously chewing on the arms of his glasses.  
  
Toby throws his pink balls, it's Leo's thing to pace.  
  
Today he has to make a crucial decision he's been putting off for weeks.  
  
What to get Margaret for her birthday.  
  
Her birthday's tomorrow and he says a small prayer of thanks for overnight shipping.  
  
He needs something that says how much she means to him both personally and professionally...does Amazon.com have such a category?  
  
"Chocolates." he suggests to himself out loud, praying she can't hear him on the other side of the door. Then he remember her bumbling last week about some new cabbage soup diet and he realizes she'll end up distributing them to the other assistants while he's not around.  
  
He doesn't want to think about expensive milk chocolate in her cats slop dish.  
  
The glasses come out of his mouth and he twirls them around in his hand as he changes pacing direction.  
  
"Teddy Bear." he says sounding surprised at his own suggestion.  
  
Only to tell himself she's not a six year old Mallory and he wants her holding him at night, not some overpriced stuffed animal.  
  
"Perfume!" every woman loves perfume. He slams the door shut on that idea when he realizes he doesn't know what she wears. The first thing the sales assistant is going to ask is, is it fruity, woody or oriental...what the hell it's perfume?!  
  
"Ok so..." he massages the bridge of his nose as he suspects a headache coming on.  
  
"Underwear." he opens his eyes and flings his hand from his face. Way to be subtle McGarry he tells himself, that half doesn't say dirty old man coming on strong.  
  
Shame he could guess her size better than her perfume.  
  
"A book?" he questions. Yeah how about 'How to get your ideal man' with appropriate pages folded down that relate to himself.  
  
"CD?" All time greatest love songs with one marked out to be theirs.  
  
"How can this be so hard?" he says exasperated, formulating policy isn't this difficult.  
  
"Jewelry." it begs the question, why didn't he think of it in the first place, he could do jewelry he bought jewelry for...Jenny...Jenny was his wife. He might as well buy Margaret an engagement ring that's how serious a present jewelry is.  
  
"Gift voucher?" no he didn't want to embarrass her by spending too much or feel cheap with too little. Besides it's kinda impersonal and sort of says 'you're my assistant and I can't buy decent gifts for you, without you.'  
  
"Sky writing, banner across the Potomac, declaration of love billboard in the middle of Times Square." Ok so they weren't serious attempts.  
  
This is hopeless he thinks settling back into his chair, spinning to look out the window, so rarely does he ever stop to smell the proverbial flowers, which, on the front lawn are in full bloom.  
  
"Flowers!"  
  
Now he just needs a florist.  
  
"Margaret I need the number of..."  
  
"Of what Leo?" she stands on the other side of the desk  
  
"Ahh nothing forget it."  
  
He can't make out what she grumbles as she closes the door between the two offices, it's going to have to be two dozen roses now.  
  
He can't ask for the number of a florist because she'll start asking questions, what do you want, who are they for, where do you want them sent, what do you want written on the card? He can't have her ordering flowers for herself.  
  
Though he has heard some women do that.  
  
She'd have her ear on the extension the moment he told her he wanted to order them himself, nothing sacred and no such thing as secret men's business.  
  
"Leo the President is here, he's going to the Rose Garden, he'd like you to accompany him." she opens the door enough to put her head through.  
  
The Presidents got a rose garden.  
  
"The Presidents got a rose garden," he says grabbing his jacket.  
  
~*~  
  
So Jed, would you mind if I picked some of your roses for Margaret? Leo rehearses, Mr. President could I pick some of your delightful roses for my equally delightful assistant? Just between you and me Jed, I'd like to have some of your roses for Margaret. Sir would I be able to take some roses to give to Margaret?  
  
Good god no he thinks sighing internally to himself, none of those will work. Why does he feel like a teenager asking his father if he can stay out late on a Friday night.  
  
"Leo are you listening to me?" the President commands...not a single word has been heard.  
  
~*~  
  
Under come hideously weak excuse, Leo remains in the garden after the President has gone back to the Oval. He surveys the mass of colored blooms having never asked permission of the President. It suddenly struck him his oldest friend would get the truth out of him and he wasn't ready to spill to the world just yet, it has been too many years since he'd done this and he was sure the scene had changed.  
  
He knows each color means something, but his head is full of domestic and foreign policy issues, in which not a lot of flower exchanging goes on....  
  
Way to woo a woman he thinks to himself, sorry about dinner, I've got to go advice the President to declare war...just like last time he was meant to celebrate with a woman he loved...that ship had sailed and he wasn't about to make the same mistake again.  
  
He thinks the office of protocol will be against this...hell VERY against this but last time he checked, it wasn't illegal to pick flowers in D.C, though this is the White House.  
  
Red is his safest option, but the peach on at the back reminds him of her brilliant colored hair and he steps through two other bushes to reach it.  
  
Then comes the non so subtle reminder that roses have thorns.  
  
The white one scratches his forearm, a reincarnated member of some earlier office of protocol warning him not to do this.  
  
The second warning comes as he tries to extract the peach bloom from the plant.  
  
His right thumb is now bleeding.  
  
"Ahh, Leo." the grumbly voice of Toby Ziegler startles him, he wasn't expecting company.  
  
"How did you find me?" Leo wrestles with a red rose, twisting and turning in an attempt to free it from the bush.  
  
"Margaret told me you were out here." Leo hadn't planned for that and having to explain to the Senior Staff would be marginally better than having to lie to Margaret.  
  
"I don't think you're supposed to be doing this." Toby states as if Leo doesn't already realize this. "I wanted to..."  
  
"Can it wait?" Leo wrestles with another red rose, violently shaking the bush.  
  
"Sure." comes out with Toby's hasty exit.  
  
The three roses so far make for a pathetic bunch and like the visit from the spirits of Christmas... Josh is next.  
  
"Does the President know you're picking roses from his garden?" Josh sneaks up on Leo causing him to curse again as his hands now bleed in four separate places.  
  
"No he does not." Leo answers through clenched teeth.  
  
"I'm going to come back later." Josh says hastily.  
  
"That would be very wise." Leo sighs, wondering who will be next.  
  
When he extracts his dozenth rose, CJ makes her presence known.  
  
"Oh for me you shouldn't have." she jokes, watching him wrestle with another stem. "I'm going to get you some scissors." she notices the bloodied hands.  
  
When she's out of earshot he says a silent thanks for someone having the sense to help, rather than run.  
  
"Can you tell Margaret to go to lunch for me." he gratefully accepts the scissors.  
  
"She can go to lunch or she has to go to lunch?" CJ clarifies.  
  
"CJ." he adds in a warning tone.  
  
"I could always get some press up here, Chief of Staff, stealing roses from the rose garden, I'm sure they'd have some fascinating questions to ask."  
  
"Go ahead, might take the focus of the rest of our screw ups, maybe we can sneak a few more through while they're distracted."  
  
"Leo what aren't you telling me?" CJ queries.  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"Nothing, but you've just picked two dozen roses and now you want me to adios your assistant from her office *before* you get back with them."  
  
"It's her birthday tomorrow Ok." he sighs in defeat.  
  
"Is that all?" she leads him looking for more.  
  
"Do you like your job CJ?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"You want to keep your job?"  
  
"Whatever Leo, I don't care what you do, who you see, whatever, but I'm your first call." she leaves with a secret smile, he didn't deny the implication.  
  
~*~  
  
Margaret is in fact gone when he gets back and he realizes he has nothing to put the roses in, nothing to do with them except lay them individually on her desk, he reluctantly goes back to CJ.  
  
CJ pulls fancy paper from somewhere and organizes them to look 'like they haven't been thrown together like some sort of mulch pile.'  
  
She looks in dismay at the ends which she claims look like they've been hacked with a chainsaw. He tells her she's looking at the wrong end.  
  
Gently he lays them on her outer desk with a plain white card on which he writes in his best-disguised handwriting.  
  
Roses are red  
  
Violets are blue  
  
I just wanted to say  
  
Happy birthday to you  
  
& also  
  
I love you.  
  
So the card is lame, but he defends himself to himself by the fact he's a politician not a poet.  
  
And of all the worse timings, he gets called into the Oval.  
  
~*~  
  
Margaret looks twice at the bunch of roses on her desk as she and Donna return from lunch and what was Donna dropping Margaret off at her office before heading back to her own becomes a bigger trip.  
  
A trip in search of a vase.  
  
"A messenger must have dropped them off." Margaret guesses as Donna unwraps the paper from around the thorns.  
  
"From who?" Donna asks picking out a delicate red bloom.  
  
"That's just it I don't know, someone must have ordered them from a florist."  
  
"These didn't come from a florist." Donna confirms inspecting the ends of the roses. "They've been picked from a rose bush, look at the ends, it's as if they've been hacked."  
  
"But who?" Margaret ponders.  
  
"Margaret..." Donna starts, "go up to the Rose Garden and see if there's been 23 red roses picked and one peach." Margaret looks across at her like she's gone crazy, then realizing it's not such a stretch, goes.  
  
~*~  
  
"There are 24 missing." Margaret tells Donna when she gets back.  
  
"It's someone here then." Donna says having got the answer she breezes back to her own office. "Someone with cut hands from picking them."  
  
~*~  
  
"What did you need?" Margaret comes when called later that afternoon.  
  
"What's next?" Leo asks.  
  
"You have a fifteen minutes till your next meeting but Toby, Josh and CJ have asked to see you."  
  
"I'll take them in order they called me in." Leo sighs knowing this could have been tied up earlier had he have not been tendering his green thumb.  
  
"You need to sign these as well." when she passes over the miscellaneous paperwork she notices his bloodied hands and gasps a little.  
  
"I'm Ok." he assures and she nods, not giving a second thought to the implication of the cut hands, only to his welfare.  
  
Later when she gathers some cream and bandages, she looks across to the flowers and as he has a heated discussion with Toby, who isn't supposed to raise his voice in Leo's office but frequently chooses to ignore the request, the penny drops.  
  
~*~  
  
Saturday Leo is nervous, Margaret hasn't approached him about the flowers and he's beginning to wonder if the sentiment will be lost to someone else.  
  
"What's wrong?" is his first reaction, she doesn't frequent his motel room, he questioned till that point if she even knew where he spent his nights.  
  
"Can I come in?" she stretches her head left and right a little to get a glimpse of the room.  
  
"Sure, happy birthday by the way." he adds as if it were an after thought.  
  
"Thanks." she replies absently noticing the work spread out across the table, in all the years she'd known him, she'd never been able to find his off switch.  
  
"What's up?" he asks casually, clearing some space on the single seat chair for her and noticing her manner. Though it's a Saturday, outside the confines of the White House she remains in the stiff boss, employee mode, when she dares only to cross the line when she thinks she can handle the rough words from him. It reminds him they rarely do anything outside the workplace and he wonders if he's been kidding himself because she's worked for him longer than he can remember and to suddenly change might be too much.  
  
"I got flowers yesterday." she brightens up, but doesn't sit as he does and it reminds him of her hovering over him in his office.  
  
"I saw, they were lovely," he says without accent.  
  
"There was a note too...it was unsigned." and he holds his breath till she continues. "I think it was from you."  
  
While it would be obvious to just confirm, he considers denying, laughing it off and making it out to be a ridiculous suggestion or neither, asking why she thought they were from him.  
  
But consideration takes too long and she jumps back in before he has a chance.  
  
"You said I love you," she says in a dry hoarse whisper.  
  
He nods once looking up to her, meeting her eyes with his.  
  
"I figured it wasn't in a friendship kind of way either." she continues and he finds himself at a loss to speak.  
  
"Were you drunk?" she asks with a slither of sass that he hasn't heard before.  
  
"No."  
  
"Then I'm wondering if you're feeling Ok because we can't do...anything, you know that...I know that." his focus leaves hers for a moment and on any other day that tone could have been telling him his schedule for the day.  
  
"I'll see you Monday." she concludes clicking the door softly behind her, he dare not watch her go. Instead looking down at his cut hands remembering the fight he had to get the roses for her, till CJ bought him the scissors. The fight isn't over yet and CJ couldn't hand him this one on a silver platter.  
  
~*~  
  
There are times in Leo McGarry's life when you know something important has to be done, his exterior is perfectly calm except for the continual jabbing at the elevator down button and the heaving sigh as it slowly makes its way to his floor. There's determination in his eyes because he knows this is right and this is how it should be. He paces away from the silver doors; realizing stairs would have been faster.  
  
Then the doors open and she's standing, waiting for the them to open fully while he's frozen outside his apartment door and all plans and prepared speeches fly out the window.  
  
Margaret goes to step off, but stops halfway when she sees him.  
  
"I love you too." her voice tiny, but not the least hesitant.  
  
He stares longingly for a moment running the magical words through his head over and over.  
  
Then the elevator doors start to shut.  
  
He doesn't reach them in time as she disappears down to the second floor, ignoring his frantic button presses encouraging it to come back to his floor, then it reaches the basement.  
  
He losses some heart realizing she didn't stop the elevator, escaped after hearing her confessed feelings...if that's what that was.  
  
When it reaches his floor again...it's empty.  
  
And somewhere behind him a door slams making him jump as he stares at the deftly empty passenger carrier. The doors close again, a metaphor, opportunities lost, doors closed.  
  
"My first kiss won't have to be resuscitation will it?" the familiar voice calls and he turns slowly towards it.  
  
"You were right...we can't do this." Leo walks slowly towards Margaret where she stands next to the fire escape stair door, he watches the slight smile drop from her face.  
  
He stops barely centimeters from her face, searching his left hand till it finds her and squeezing it in his.  
  
"We *have* to do this." her smile instantly recovers and he dips his head a little closer and closer still, till their lips make contact.  
  
~*~  
  
"What are you thinking?" he pulls the light sheet up the bed and over them as a brisk night air from somewhere hits his naked skin.  
  
"That you're in so much trouble on Monday." she shifts slightly on her side but never letting her eyes stray from his, for the last fifteen minutes all she's wanted to do is look at him.  
  
"How's that?" a knowing smile graces his features.  
  
"Stealing flowers from the rose garden...and look who you have in your bed?" her voice timidly soft as she caresses a scratched hands over and over in hers.  
  
"I wouldn't change one single thing." the other hand pushes her hair back over her shoulder.  
  
"You look as though you had to fight for me."  
  
"I did...in a way." he extracts the hand tracing gently down her forehead and across her cheek.  
  
"Promise me something." her tone becomes serious  
  
"No more plundering the President's rose garden, next time you get me a nice piece of stationary."  
  
~*~ 


End file.
